Health and medical ethics

OII Australia has submitted a shadow report to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, endorsed by the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia, Disabled People’s Organisations of Australia, National LGBTI Health Alliance, and People with Disability Australia. It provides evidence of continuing harmful practices in Australian hospitals, with support from Australian governments and the Family Court, and makes a number of recommendations, based upon the 2017 Darlington Statement.

In mid 2016, OII Australia made a submission to the United Nations Committee against Torture documenting human rights violations against intersex people in Australia. Since around that date, the Department of Health and Human Services in Victoria has systematically removed evidence of human rights violations, including psychosocial justifications for surgeries such as “marriage” prospects, and… Read more →

The Family Court of Australia has recently published a new case involving an intersex child, this time where the parents sought consent for their child, an adolescent, to obtain treatment for “gender dysphoria”. Unlike in the recent Family Court case Re Carla (Medical procedure) [2016] Fam CA 7, the case was not supported by a… Read more →

We announce publication of a joint consensus statement, the “Darlington Statement”, by Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand intersex organisations and independent advocates, in March 2017. It sets out common priorities and calls to action by the intersex human rights movement in our countries.

We’ve had interviews like this piece, by Prospekt Magazine. Telling our personal stories is always challenging, bringing old wounds back to the surface. Alexander Berezkin, the interviewee in this article by Tatiana Kondratenko about intersex people in Russia, is to be congratulated. The problem with interviews like this is that Alexander’s story is incidental to… Read more →

Update For more detailed analyses of the case please consider reading the following resources: Carpenter M. The “Normalization” of Intersex Bodies and “Othering” of Intersex Identities in Australia. Bioethical Inquiry. 2018 May 7;1–9. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-018-9855-8 (Open access) Intersex Human Rights Australia, Carpenter M. Submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission on the Review of… Read more →

Witnessed by members and representatives of the South Australian LGBTI communities, on 1 December, the Hon. J Weatherill, Premier of South Australia put the following motion to the House of Assembly: 1. That this house recognises that many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer community members have been discriminated against by South Australia’s legislation…. Read more →

With kind permission from both author and journal, we are pleased to share a paper by Aileen Kennedy entitled “Fixed at birth: Medical and legal erasures of intersex variations”, published earlier this year by the UNSW Law Journal. There is complicity between the medical and the legal construction of variations of sex development as pathological… Read more →

OII Australia co-chair Morgan Carpenter has been published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Reproductive Health Matters. Here is the article abstract: Intersex people and bodies have been considered incapable of integration into society. Medical interventions on often healthy bodies remain the norm, addressing perceived familial and cultural demands, despite concerns about necessity, outcomes, conduct and… Read more →

The sponsorship of LGBTI events by IVF businesses raises ethical issues not just about the elimination of intersex traits, but also about the nature of community and comprehension of issues relating to intersex bodily diversity. Several recent conferences and events in Australia have included sponsorship or presentations by IVF businesses, promoting their services in family… Read more →

OII Australia has submitted suggested issues for consideration by the UN Committee Against Torture, for its next review of Australia. A pattern of human rights abuses on infants, children and adolescents with intersex traits persists in Australia, including those that Juan E. Méndez, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or… Read more →

OII Australia and eight partner organisations collaborated in Rainbow Votes, coordinated by Corey Irlam. The Rainbow Votes coalition appreciates the comprehensive responses by the Australian Greens, Australian Labor Party and Liberal National Coalition to our 2016 LGBTI election survey. Members of the Rainbow Votes coalition of LGBTI rights and health organisations have assessed the content… Read more →